AI and ML Marketing with Google

How to Prepare for and benefit from this approaching revolution

Artificial intelligence assists with computer vision, monitoring your car and with Google home being able to turn off your lounge room lights.

Machine learning underlies all this technology.

Instead of a program executing, or statistical analysis in a spreadsheet, Machine Learning looks at all of this and presents a simpler model for your assistance. ML is also capable of changing its mind based on learning from the results.

Again, in the example of turning off the lights AI will understand and turn them off. ML will then check if any other lights are on and ask if you want to turn the kitchen lights off as well.

5 key points to consider for marketing professionals

1.   Get yourself a rudimentary understanding of statistics. Understand sampling. Understand how segmentation works.

Think of this move to ML as computers no longer being binary such as answering correct or incorrect. Embrace the new probability models.

ML is simply a way of programming probabilities to offer advice.

You do NOT need to study statistics. Just understand the principles.

For example, in a car all you need to know is if a dashboard light goes on for oil temp, you need to head to a garage and get your oil checked FAST.

2.   Read up some history. Consider the last 50 years of AI and where it started, the different philosophies.

Do you build a machine just for super intelligence or to enhance our lives?

Is an Astronaut a passenger or a pilot?

Systems were built to give the astronaut some control over the capsules for psychological reasons.

Summer reading: Machines of Loving Grace John Markoff

Covers privacy and gives a great foundation to lean upon.

3.   Be inquisitive.

Attend conferences, read books, listen to podcasts.

Be the one in your company that encourages others to help build a ML centre of learning. Be the internal evangelist.

4.   Get to know AI tools.

Google AdWords and organic search. Einstein in Salesforce, Adobe Sensei, IBM Watson. Experiment with programmatic advertising.

Just click the button and you get AI included. Or you can just do the work yourself and take longer.

5.  Be cautious. Use the sniff test.

Before going all in on ML consider if it makes sense to you. You don’t need to understand how the decision was made just that it makes a sensible decision.

In hospital emergency rooms software predicted that Asthma patients are low risk and can be treated later if they attend with Pneumonia. However, Doctors and Nurses know that they need to be treated as emergencies. Therefore they had better recovery times as they were rushed straight into A&E.

AI and ML are here to stay. They can make a marketer’s life easier. It allows you to have the time to think strategically and not just constantly reacting.

Be prepared and you will thrive. If you don’t will you survive?

With thanks to Jim Sterne and Google Partners.